Marc Chadbourn - The Devil in green

'They're crazy,' Miller muttered.

'Your God's more real, is that it?' Mallory noted.

'Yes.' Miller knew Mallory was baiting him but couldn't resist responding. 'He's been worshipped for millennia, not ten months.'

'So in a couple of thousand years, old Clooney-'

'Oh, shut up.' Miller tried to stop there, but he couldn't. 'There's a whole coherent philosophy behind Christianity-' His ears burned at Mallory's laughter. 'There is!'

'You don't have to sell it to me, Miller. Just don't try pretending you're better than these poor sods.'

They continued to wander, exploring the sights. As a new city, Salisbury had the benefit of being planned on a rectangular chequerboard pattern like some Roman metropolis. Most people gathered in a small square that ran from the market to the Makings and up to Crane Street and New Street, a continuous thoroughfare that was the closest to the cathedral.

As Mallory and Miller wandered along the path at the side of the culverted river, watching the trout, grayling and dace swim in the light of an occasional torch, they were disturbed by the sounds of a scuffle coming from further along the lonely path where no light burned. Mallory was ready to ignore it, but when Miller jumped to investigate he felt a weary obligation to follow.

Barely visible in the gloom, three men were hunched over a still shape on the floor. Before Mallory could utter a caution, Miller was already yelling, 'Leave him alone!'

Against his better judgment, Mallory ran in behind Miller, who was rapidly closing on the three. The gang half-heartedly squared up to him, then saw Mallory behind and decided it was too much trouble. They turned and ran off into the dark, but not before Mallory saw that they were all wearing black T-shirts marked with a bright red V from shoulders to navel.

'Have you lost your mind?' Mallory said.

Miller was kneeling next to the shape on the floor: a young man crumpled in a growing pool of blood. 'We're knights. We're supposed to help people in trouble.'

'I'm going to have to have a word with you about the difference between fantasy and reality.' Mallory checked the victim's pulse. 'Dead.'

'Poor man. Who shall we tell?'

'No one.'

'We can't leave him here,' Miller said. 'He'll have a family-'

'Someone will find him soon enough. Listen, we're strangers here. They're likely to think we did it. Not everyone has a naive belief that all people speak the truth.' He knelt down and started to go through the victim's pockets.

'What are you doing?' Miller said, aghast.

Mallory fished out a wallet and went through the contents. 'Look at this. They've got their own currency going on here. A local economy.' He took the amateurishly printed notes and stuffed them in his pockets.

'You can't do that!'

'He can't take it with him.'

'You're as bad as the people who killed him!'

'No, I'm not, because I didn't kill him. Come on, we'll have a drink on him.'

'I will not,' Miller said peevishly.

'Then you can sit beside me while I have a drink. You've got to get your head around how the world works these days, Miller.'

'What, without ethics or morals?'

'Something like that.' Mallory sighed. 'No, I don't mean that. But you've got to be hard, Miller. There's no safety net in this world any more. No Welfare State to help you out. Everybody's watching their own backs — that's the only way to survive.'

'I don't believe you, and you'll never convince me otherwise. Basic human nature is decent.'

'And then you woke up. Are you coming or not?' Mallory walked back towards the lights. Miller hovered for a moment, sad and angry at the same time, then followed.

They found a pub overlooking the market square. The bright green doors of the Cornmarket Inn were thrown open to the night, tempting passers- by into the smoky interior lit by just enough candles and torches to provide shadows for those who preferred to drink out of plain view. The customers were a mixed bunch: some rural workers, grime on their clothes and grass seeds in their lace-holes, some weary-eyed traders and shopkeepers who had finished up for the night, and a large group who all appeared to know each other. They ranged from teenagers to pensioner age, but the smattering of dreadlocks and shaved heads, hippie jewellery and colourful clothes made Mallory think of New Age travellers.

True to his word, Miller eschewed a drink, but he appeared happy enough surrounded by the high-spirited pub-goers. Mallory ordered a pint of ale brewed in the pub's back room and they retreated to the only free table.

'What do you think those Blues were up to?' Mallory mused as he sipped on his beer. 'The elite group,' he added with mockery.

Miller didn't appear to have given it a second thought. 'Nothing for us to worry about.'

Mallory looked at him in disbelief. 'Of course it's something for us to worry about. Everything is something for us to worry about.'

'Blaine-'

'The bishop, the canons, all of them… You don't put your trust in people who set themselves up as leaders, Miller. In religion, in politics, in the military, in business… the simple act of seeking high office is a signifier of a peculiar, unreliable, controlling, unpleasant pathology that means they shouldn't be allowed any kind of power. And I'll keep saying that over and over again until everyone on this planet listens.'

'That's ridiculous. If we followed that line of thought we wouldn't have any leaders at all.'

'And your point is?'

'You can't have a religion without leaders-'

'Who says?'

Miller squirmed with irritation. 'I hate it when you do this. Why are you picking on me?'

'Because your life's just too perfect, Miller. You need to be brought down to everyone else's level. Just see me as your own personal tormentor, a living horsehair shirt for the soul.'

Miller took a deep breath. 'You can't have a religion without leaders because you need discipline-'

'No, you don't.'

'-to help the followers find the true path to God through all the confusion.'

'You can do it yourself.' Mallory jabbed a finger sharply into Miller's sternum.

No, I can't.'

'You just don't think you can. You can do anything you want, Miller.'

'Thanks for the vote of confidence, but you don't know me. Besides, that sounds faintly blasphemous.'

Miller started to brood over what Mallory had said, chewing on the nail of one of his little fingers. Mallory returned to his beer, hiding his smile, but after a moment he was drawn back to the neo-hippies whose humour was both infectious and comforting. Mallory realised how rarely he had heard anyone laugh in recent times.

His attention fell on a woman who was doing nothing out of the ordinary but who had a presence like a beacon. He realised he'd been aware of her from the moment he walked in the pub, even though he couldn't recall looking at her; all around people were glancing at her as if they couldn't tear their eyes away. She was in her mid- to late twenties, wearing a faded hippie dress beneath a bright pink mohair sweater; a clutter of beads and necklaces hung around her neck. The others in her group, even the older ones, deferred to her, nodding intently when she was serious, laughing at her jokes. Mallory liked the sharp, questioning intelligence he saw in her face, but it was coupled with a knowing quality around the eyes that was deeply sexy. To him that was a winning combination.

'Do you like her?' He had been so lost in his appraisal that he hadn't noticed Miller studying him.

'She's put together OK.'

Miller chuckled. 'Is it the hair?'

'I wouldn't be so shallow as to be attracted by the merely physical.'

'You make me laugh, Mallory!' Miller put his hands behind his head. 'What I see is long brown hair that you just want to touch, full lips that curl up at the corners, and big, big eyes-'